Bond 23

[CaledonianGonzo]

Either omniscient or a spy, spying on people that spies spy on like what spies do. 

Anyway, a second viewing allowed me to forget about the plot niggles and enjoy the elements that this movie gets so very right.  Man, that underrwater fight scene followed by the flare with all those beautiful firey watercolours.  Bond has never before looked so ravishing

[Dead kate moss]

Have you only just heard of James Bond or something?

Hmmm... use the phrase in a sentence.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Watched this last night (nice quality DVD screener is "available", Would have seen it at the cinema but couldn't find anyone to go with..). Very good. Not as good as Casino Royale but I'd still put it pretty high. Was a bit worried about so many scenes being set in Blighty, as I think Bond needs the exotic locations to work, but they worked well (and a big old house in the middle of the highlands kind of worked as an exotic location). Aston Martin excited me greatly, liked the new Q and javier Bardem was class. Don't get the idea about the shower scene being "rapey" at all, clearly he was just chancing his arm with someone who definitely fancied him and she reciprocated. I'd be a bit more subtle, personally, but this is Bond...

[chand]

Having watched the film over Christmas with my partner (who's admittedly a pretty serious feminist), we shared a disapproving glance at the shower scene. It's not a rape scene, of course, as everyone agrees, but it's also really not The Done Thing when it comes to gaining sexual consent. "Yeah, but they flirted though" is not especially convincing when the flirting was barely there among the exposition and Bond's discovery that she was trafficked and sexually abused from childhood to this very day. I dunno about you guys, but for me that's not sex chat.

I agree with Kishi about the power balance being off; Bond is her only hope to escape this life of being exploited for sex, and yet his first act before he's even achieved this is to...walk into her shower expecting sex. It's more than a little icky when viewed in the established context of her life of being expected to submit sexually to men.

She does enough at the end to show she's not outwardly uncomfortable with it, but it doesn't really excuse the fact that sneaking into the shower of a woman you've literally just met and approaching her from behind is a sub-optimal way to obtain consent. It's an aggressively forward physical imposition, when he could have just waited for her to finish, engaged in drinks and conversation and proceeded from there.

I get that it's part of the dubious gender politics of the Bond universe, although that seems a weird defence since I would criticise those too. I don't make a habit of agreeing with Giles "go fuck yourself you barren old hag" Coren, and I'm not really with him on the M stuff, but I get his revulsion at both the shower scene and said character's lolsome demise, and Moneypenny's outcome, which is a bit "well I guess if I can slightly mis-aim a sniper rifle shot over the course of a couple of hundred metres trying to pick out the bad guy out of a grappling twosome as they hurtle by on a train, I'm clearly too ditzy for this field work". I'd add the fact that one unnamed female character is thrown in for about thirty seconds to take part Bond's 'retirement', which she does by being naked and getting nailed, which was a little gratuitous.

All that aside, I generally liked it. Don't make a habit of watching Bond films because most versions of Bond are smugly punchable as fuck, but Craig's a slightly more interesting presence.

[Mister Six]

Despite being one of the anti-shower-scene lot, I do disagree with a couple of things you've said, Chand. To wit:

Moneypenny's outcome, which is a bit "well I guess if I can slightly mis-aim a sniper rifle shot over the course of a couple of hundred metres trying to pick out the bad guy out of a grappling twosome as they hurtle by on a train, I'm clearly too ditzy for this field work".

I got the impression that it was less that she thought she was shit and more that she just didn't feel comfortable doing the fieldwork stuff in general (though I accept that their banter is very much, 'You shot me LOL', I think we can write it off as being matey chatter).

I'd add the fact that one unnamed female character is thrown in for about thirty seconds to take part Bond's 'retirement', which she does by being naked and getting nailed, which was a little gratuitous.

I don't mind this much either. The point was to show that none of the things that most people would enjoy on their 'time off' (beaches, drinking, sex, being the star of the party) are entertaining Bond at all. He is lost without MI6. One of the themes of the film is that Bond is 007, and that nothing outside that role holds any interest any more - hence him symbolically blowing up his family estate and going to save M, his new 'mother'. It got lost bit in the explosions, though, and I bet there's a more thematically robust draft somewhere in the MGM archives.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I was wondering if the last scene (flirting with the new Moneypenny, a proper man's man back in charge as M, the old style office) was a hint that they would be throwing the "PC" Bond that we've had since Dalton took over out of the window and going for slightly tongue-in-cheek 60s-style shenanigans. He's a pretty anachronistic character anyway...

[Mister Six]

Possibly. If so, I think it's a waste of a good reboot. It was always going to default to campiness anyway - it would have been nice to have five films of Casino Royale-style tone and content than one and a half.

[Blumf]

Does Bond have to be contemporary? Could they have it set back in the 1950/60s? Would that work?

[Old Nehamkin]

Does Bond have to be contemporary? Could they have it set back in the 1950/60s? Would that work?

It would make product placement much more difficult.

[Jemble Fred]

Does Bond have to be contemporary? Could they have it set back in the 1950/60s? Would that work?

There have long been rumours of doing something like this – wasn't Cumberbatch in the frame? (Though that sounds like idle column-filler really.) And I'm certain they will try something along those lines before long, Fleming's posthumous ghost writers have written plenty of period plots over the years, I think. But that would only be in its own bubble I'm sure, out there with NSNA, the first Casino Royale etc., existing alongside the 'canon' series. Come to think of it, Higson's young Bond series is presumably written specifically to be easily adaptable as well.

[SavageHedgehog]

Of the "proper" books I think only Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks was period, the Gardner and Benson books were contemporary

[Jemble Fred]

Ah, for some reason I thought Faulks was reviving a tradition of setting the books in the original period.



Vaguely Cumberbatchy, I suppose.

[Revelator]

I know that image (which looks very little like Cumberbatch to me) was supposed to have been commissioned by Fleming to show what he thought Bond looked like, but does anyone know its provenance? I'd like to think it's genuine, but no one has ever said who drew it, when it was drawn, or given proof that Fleming commissioned it.

As for a period Bond--I thought all three of Craig's films made a good case for keeping Bond as a contemporary figure, despite their varying flaws. I doubt Wilson and Brocolli (or the corporate overlords at Sony) would ever consider a period film--the grosses would automatically go down and the international market is too important for such risks. Let's just be glad the series isn't stunk in the generic action movie funk of the Brosnan years.

[non capisco]

I've read Tarantino was trying to obtain the rights to make 'Casino Royale' at some point between 'Die Another Day' and the version that actually got made. He wanted to do it as a period piece with Brosnan starring. Could have been great or could have been Bond having a long conversation with Le Chiffre about the comparitive merits of the pre-war Beano and Dandy whilst drinking Vodka Martini off a woman's foot. I dunno. Still think they should let him have a crack at one. Why the fuck not?

[Thomas]

I think that a Tarantino Casino Royale could have been fantastic, even if it did feature Bond having a long conversation with Le Chiffre about the comparitive merits of the pre-war Beano and Dandy whilst drinking Vodka Martini off a woman's foot.

I sort of hope that this 50-year-old series (which has been cut in two anyway by the reboot) comes to a dignified(?) close with Daniel Craig's incarnation of 007, and that, after a Bondless few years - perhaps a decade or more - we get a proper 1960s-based adaptation of a Fleming novel.

Also, this is CHEEKY, but I wrote a bit about Skyfall for a comedy blog (and a bit about The Dark Knight Rises below it). It's just a paragraph, halfway down the page, but I thought it might interest a few Bondian CaBbers.

[Revelator]

I sort of hope that this 50-year-old series (which has been cut in two anyway by the reboot) comes to a dignified(?) close with Daniel Craig's incarnation of 007, and that, after a Bondless few years - perhaps a decade or more - we get a proper 1960s-based adaptation of a Fleming novel.

As a Fleming fan I'd quite like to see proper period adaptations of the Fleming books that were never properly handled (such as Diamonds Are Forever, Moonraker, You Only Live Twice, etc., though such adaptations might work better in animation). But if I was a film producer I wouldn't, not as long as the current Bond series makes anything remotely close to big money. And if they could reboot it once, they can do so again.
I'd also argue that the real break in the series came with GoldenEye, the films that marks the complete departure of the original Bond team (John Barry, Ken Adam, Richard Maibaum, Maurice Binder, and Cubby Broccoli [who had delegated producing by then]). From then on the Bond films began following modern action movies more closely--if the Schwarzenegger/Willis/Stallone era influenced the Brosnan films, the Craig entries are clearly influenced by Bourne and Nolan-Batman.

[Thomas]

I agree that GoldenEye presented a departure from the Cold War Bond, but, as far as Die Another Die clumsily implies (if I remember the gadget scene correctly), Brosnan's Bond is the same ageless man as all the other Bonds before him, right back to 1962.[nb]I'm a pedant for continuity, so I like to imagine that all the different Bonds exist in separate canons - Moore's Bond is not the same character, nor does he inhabit the same universe, as Lazenby's, and so on. They just share similar backstories, hence Moore visiting Tracy's grave and all that business. But this view of mine is perhaps 100% irrelevant.[/nb] This was how I saw Casino Royale to be cutting the series in two.

..the Craig entries are clearly influenced by Bourne and Nolan-Batman.

And, almost poetically, the Nolan-Batman films are influenced by pre-Craig Bond. A circular human centipede of cinematic influence.

[mobias]

As a Fleming fan I'd quite like to see proper period adaptations of the Fleming books that were never properly handled (such as Diamonds Are Forever, Moonraker, You Only Live Twice, etc.,

Moonraker not properly handled!!!???? Are you serious???? What bit about Jaws redeeming himself whilst uttering his first words after falling in love with a pretty bespectacled blond girl with pony tails aboard an orbiting space station filled with an aryan race is it you don't like???

For fuck sake, there's no pleasing some people on this forum...

[Revelator]

Not properly handled as an adaptation at least. Jaws doesn't even appear in the book.

[mobias]

Not properly handled as an adaptation at least. Jaws doesn't even appear in the book.

And the book is all the worse off for it I say.

[El Unicornio, mang]

not as long as the current Bond series makes anything remotely close to big money. And if they could reboot it once, they can do so again.

They're pretty much guaranteed to make a load of money, it seems. Even Licence to Kill made back 5 times its budget at the box office! (DaD made back 3 times the budget, not bad since it cost $142 million to make and got terrible reviews)

[Jemble Fred]

This thread is the first time I've ever heard of Casino Royale being any kind of actual reboot in any meaningful sense –  or, no more than any other new actor Bond movie. It's just one of the series, there's no question of it creating any kind of schism whatsoever. Christ, it even has Dench picking up where she left off. It's no more of a reboot than OHMSS, certainly. Goldeneye was far more of a line in the sand, with the 'dinosaur' dialogue when Dench was first introduced. In comparison, great though it is and a departure though it obviously is, Casino Royale is fundamentally business as usual.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

This thread is the first time I've ever heard of Casino Royale being any kind of actual reboot in any meaningful sense –  or, no more than any other new actor Bond movie. It's just one of the series, there's no question of it creating any kind of schism whatsoever. Christ, it even has Dench picking up where she left off. It's no more of a reboot than OHMSS, certainly. Goldeneye was far more of a line in the sand, with the 'dinosaur' dialogue when Dench was first introduced. In comparison, great though it is and a departure though it obviously is, Casino Royale is fundamentally business as usual.

Really? It's got Bond gaining his his licence to kill with Dench in charge. It can't be part of the established continuity, unless you subscribe to the 'Bond is a codename' idea.

[Revelator]

And the book is all the worse off for it I say.

Oh, the book is miles better than the movies. Then again, anything would be better than a film that has a pidgeon who does double-takes.

[Jemble Fred]

Really? It's got Bond gaining his his licence to kill with Dench in charge. It can't be part of the established continuity, unless you subscribe to the 'Bond is a codename' idea.

Well admittedly I've not seen it in a while, but I don't recall that being any major 'first', I just thought that was Bond regaining his full licence. Brosnan's introduction felt like more of a blatant clearing of the decks. Then there's 'This never happened to the other guy', etc. Casino Royale is the 21st film in a series full of reinventions and impossible continuities. If it can be described as a 'reboot', then it's certainly not the first one in the franchise.

[Thomas]

Well admittedly I've not seen it in a while, but I don't recall that being any major 'first', I just thought that was Bond regaining his full licence. Brosnan's introduction felt like more of a blatant clearing of the decks.

Opening scene dialogue in Casino Royale establishes that Craig's Bond has only committed a single kill during his time with the service.

Judi Dench branding Brosnan a 'sexist, misogynistic dinosaur... a relic of the Cold War' in GoldenEye sort of affirmed, for me, that it was supposed to be a continuation of our Bond of old.

[Jemble Fred]

Opening scene dialogue in Casino Royale establishes that Craig's Bond has only committed a single kill during his time with the service.

Ugh, does it? Sorry. Fuck, that's appalling, no wonder I'd completely blocked it out.

Maybe you can negate it by saying it's a different technical definition of 'service', that MI6's records were altered, etc, etc. It's still film 21 in the series.

[Revelator]

One of Bond's first two victims, a mole, says "Benefits of being section chief. I'd know if anyone had been promoted to double-oh status, wouldn't I? Your file shows no kills." He doesn't know that Bond has already killed one of his underlings, and that he's next. Later on in the film, M complains "And how the hell could Bond be so stupid? I give him double-O status and he celebrates by shooting up an embassy." While GoldenEye was indeed a true clearing of the decks in terms of creative personnel and actors, CR is a definite reset of the continuity that had been in place since 1962.

And now Skyfall seems like a retreat toward the old continuity. Bond--who's only been a double-o for two films--is suddenly feeling old and worn-out, and he has the Aston Martin from Goldfinger, rather than the one he won in CR. And while the new M is not Sir Miles Messervy, he is a man, as of old. However, the film does show Bond meeting Moneypenny for the first time, so maybe it's only a semi-reboot of a reboot? A semi-re-reboot? My head hurts.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

A re-shoeing?

[Thomas]

I think Skyfall is definitely a continuation of the reboot era, completely canonically separate from the world of Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, and Brosnan, but with undertones of and nods to the fifty years of cinema that it sits atop.

The Aston Martin could be a prickly point, but I just imagine that Bond got his Casino Royale one gadgetted-up (for whatever reason) at some point in the six years since his Casino Royale/Quantum of Solace adventures.